


Breathe

by Jillian Maria (masterofthefictionalyard)



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: ?????, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Although I guess it could be read as canon mostly it was written for modern, Anxiety, Child Abuse, Gen, also fyi the rape mention is there but it's not super explicit, more like the mental strain that comes from living in an abusive situation, so be wary, still the tag was applicable, well sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 17:55:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4272618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masterofthefictionalyard/pseuds/Jillian%20Maria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martha Bessell knows how to breathe, except when she doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe

Martha Bessell knows how to survive. She knows how to keep her eyes down, her head bowed, her lips shut. She knows how to keep tears from spilling and cries from rising in her throat. She knows how to say “yes, father,” and “you’re right, father,” and “I’m sorry, father” and she knows how to sound like she means it. She knows how to bandage gashes on her arm when the belt’s buckle hits the wrong way and she knows how to keep her eyes on the ceiling and stay quiet on those nights when she has no other choice.

Martha Bessell knows how to _breathe_. Except when she doesn’t.

It catches up to her when she’s alone, mostly. When she’s out with her friends, she tries to put it all from her mind. She makes the most of her freedom while she has it, unbraiding her hair and untroubling her mind. It’s always _there_ , in the back of her skull, and she knows it could consume her every waking moment, but it doesn’t. She’s thankful for that, but when it does hit, it hits _hard_.

The ironic thing is that it never happens when one might reasonably expect it to. It doesn’t come when her mother glares at her, as if she loathed her very presence. It doesn’t come when she sees her father’s belt in his hand. It doesn’t come when his mouth holds her name in anger, loud and brash, or in a grotesque parody of love, whispered and rasped. At these times she feels fear, or anger, or sadness, but that unnamed, unidentified _it_ doesn’t come then.

Instead, it hits her when she's alone in her bedroom, when she sits on the bed and looks up at her ceiling and sees the crack in the white plaster that she traces with her eyes on those nights when she desperately longs to be anywhere else. It hits her in the shower when the hot spray stings the welts on her arms and she’s forced to relive the memory of how she obtained every single one. It hits her in the kitchen, in the living room, in the hallway, always alone. It hits her in the sound of her dad’s footsteps pausing and then moving on, a punishment that doesn’t quite come imminent in the silence.

In those moments, Martha Bessell does not know silence, or restraint, or even breathing. All she knows is that there’s suddenly too much of her in her own skin; she can feel herself straining and pushing against the confines of her bones and ballooning in her chest and she’s sure she’s going to widen the angry tears of the buckle in her skin until she’s ripped to shreds. In moments of calm she is able to reflect that her emotions must resemble those of an animal caught in a trap, but when it actually comes she’s unable to comprehend anything other than helplessness and terror.

Her fists clench. Her teeth grind together. She wants to scream, or cry, or do something, but most of the time all she can manage is a low whimper, something that whistles in and out of her throat with the rasping pant of her irregular breathing.

The fear in these moments isn’t unusual, because Martha is always afraid. She’s always afraid that one day her father will come after her with a knife instead of a belt. She’s afraid that he’ll bar her windows and lock her doors, turning her into his doll, never to see the outside world again. She’s afraid that at night when her eye traces the crack on the ceiling, his hands will close around her throat and she’ll forget breathing forever.

She lives with those fears and a million others. She’s afraid of fighting, afraid of saying no, afraid of raised voices and sudden noises and creaking houses late at night. If she were to break down every time she was afraid, she’d never be able to move again. But that’s not the case. And even when she _does_ break, the moments always pass; she’s able to feel natural in her own skin again as her muscles relax.

She’s left feeling guilty in the aftermath of these episodes, for reasons she can’t quite explain. The idea of any of her friends seeing her in such a state is horrifying to her. They already worry about her enough, she knows, she can see it in the way they eye her sleeves and frown whenever her father is mentioned. She already causes them enough distress, and this would only cause them more.

And so she smiles. It’s about more than putting on a brave face, about more than those that are more of a family to her than her parents could ever be. She smiles because she means it. She laughs at Georg’s jokes and grins at Ilse’s antics. She smiles because she loves her friends, and more than anything, she doesn’t want to let those moments when she forgets to breathe take that from her. They are a part of her, and she worries that even when she’s far away, she’ll never escape them, but she will not let them define her.

She smiles because even when she forgets how to breathe, she never forgets how to _survive_.

**Author's Note:**

> So, confession: I actually wrote this awhile ago. But it's honestly a favorite of mine, so I wanted to share it here. It was, again, written for the rp group I'm in, but was also sort a vent work for me. And, for those interested, I have a canon era Wendla-centric piece coming up very soon, hopefully :) It's about halfway written, at this point.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoy, and please leave comments! They make my day xoxo


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